It may sound surprising, but when times are tough and there is no other food available, some soil bacteria can consume traces of hydrogen in the air as an energy source.
, the enzyme may have considerable potential to power small, sustainable air-powered devices in future.Prompted by this discovery, we analyzed the genetic code of a soil bacterium calledWritten into these genes is the blueprint for producing the molecular machine responsible for consuming hydrogen and converting it into energy for the bacterium. This machine is an enzyme called a"hydrogenase", and we named it Huc for short.
Flowing electrons are what electricity is made of, meaning Huc directly converts hydrogen into electrical current. Remarkably, we found that even when isolated from the bacteria, Huc can consume hydrogen at concentrations far lower even than the tiny traces in the air. In fact, Huc still consumed whiffs of hydrogen too faint to be detected by our gas chromatograph, a highly sensitive instrument we use to measure gas concentrations.
We used several cutting-edge methods to study how Huc does this at the molecular level. These included advanced microscopy and spectroscopy to determine its atomic structure and electrical pathways, pushing boundaries to produce the most highly resolved enzyme structure yet reported by this method.Enzymes could use air to power the devices of tomorrow
However, our work demonstrates that Huc functions like a"natural battery" producing a sustained electrical current from air or added hydrogen.
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